Heavy duty boxes formed from one or more plies of corrugated cardboard are commonly used for shipping products in bulk. These boxes are frequently fastened to a pallet by staples or straps prior to filling the box with product. The end user must either have the container shipped to it in its set-up condition and already fastened on the pallet, or the end user must have the necessary stapling or strapping equipment available to set up the container in-house. In the former case, shipping the set-up container and pallet is expensive, and in the latter case, the assembly and set up requires added capital cost for equipment, is labor intensive, and presents safety issues for the end user and its employees. Also, because of the large size of a typical bulk box, it is difficult to reach into the box to apply staples. Moreover, the staples must penetrate both the box and the pallet, and strapping normally crushes the box. Both methods require hand tools to apply and remove the fasteners, and cause damage to both the box and the pallet, making re-use impractical.
Further, the boxes, with attached pallets, are commonly stacked on top of one another up to three pallets high. The side walls must have sufficient stacking strength to withstand the compressive load imposed on them. Conventional boxes of the type with which the present invention is concerned typically have a capacity of 500 pounds, i.e., they can safely be stacked three high when loaded with 500 pounds of product. However, some bulk products have greater weight than this, and although conventional boxes have a built-in safety factor, greater stacking strength is desirable.
Accordingly, there is need for a bulk shipping box and pallet assembly that can be manufactured and shipped to an end user in a knocked-down or flattened condition and then easily set up by the end user and fastened to a pallet, and easily detached from the pallet when desired, without requiring the use of hand tools or other equipment, and without causing damage to either the box or the pallet, whereby they are suitable for reuse. Further, there is need for a bulk shipping box having improved stacking strength.